Mud guards are well known for guarding against various road debris thrown rearwardly from the wheels of a vehicle by being positioned rearwardly of the wheels to catch the thrown debris. On towing vehicles in particular it is desirable to provide mud guards, otherwise known as tow guards or tow flaps and the like, which extend substantially the full width of the vehicle to catch the debris being thrown rearward towards a towed object to in turn protect the towed object.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,394,475 belonging to Simon, U.S. Pat. No. 6,485,059 belonging to Burnstein and U.S. Pat. No. 6,955,369 belonging to Schiebout et al. disclose various examples of mud flap assemblies which are supported on the hitch of the towing vehicle for ease of removal when not in use. Such designs however when only supported centrally on the towing vehicle hitch are largely unstable and have the potential to rock or be displaced about when the vehicle is in motion. Typically designs include a supporting frame which spans the fully width of the vehicle which is substantially supported only on the hitch so that even when removed, a large awkward frame is required to be stored. Due to the awkward sizes of typical frames and the mounting thereof on the hitch, positioning the mud guards or mud flaps is typically awkward. Furthermore such assemblies are only useful when supported on vehicles having a hitch at the rear bumper, however such assemblies cannot be supported on vehicles that do not have a rear bumper hitch and instead rely on a fifth wheel hitch for example.
Other designs of mud flaps which are not supported on the hitch of the vehicle typically require substantial mounting onto the vehicle with numerous threaded fasteners so that it is subsequently difficult to remove the mud guards when no longer towing an object.